There is a man with purple lips watching the fourth stall. I notice because the two women who accompany him on either side wear little clothing, their hands and legs exposed. They both wear glinting jewelery in their ears and on their fingers, wrists and ankles. One woman's hair is luminescent in the crawling light,clashing with the gold chain running from her ear to her nose and eyebrow, and I remind myself that it is nearly time. The stall they stand before is the one I want, the man turns inward only slightly and I take it as an indication I may continue forward, although I doubt he has noticed me. His lips may be a trick, men are always divining new tricks to seduce the young and stupid. Edging between a tall boy and the woman with him I am at the stall only a moment before Purple Lips' voice is in my spine, shuddering down from my ear.
"Pretty thing, what you lookin' for?"
My chin presses into my throat, green and blue packages line my sight - pain killers and cold medicine that everyone wants but few can afford - and then his hand. It lies flat on the packages and I flinch at the implications. Please don't break them, stupid man, you know as well as I do that the minder of this stalls thinks you are mine. The minder has stood, moving up to his counter, eyes flicking between the man's hand and my eyes.
"Little pretty thing, ain'tcha? Sweet one, look at me."
He steps closer, fingers spidering over my shoulders, and I try not to throw up. Everywhere his body touches mine disgusts me, I disgust myself.
"Leave me be, it'll be light soon."
"The light lives in your eyes, Sun, and you blind me." I can feel the grin on his lips and the slick movement of his thighs against my hip, his hand pressing harder on the packages.
"Gonna buy, lady? Come on, sun up soon...I don't have all night, yeah? Your man will break my product. You gonna buy?" Purple Lips is breathing in my skin, I can almost taste his teeth on my shoulder, my ear, my neck. I am closer to crying than I have been in months, this angers me.
"Panadol. Green, please. And This is not my man. This is not known to me." The minder looks at Purple Lips closer now, pausing on those starkly pronounced lips that nuzzle my hair.
"Sure, sure. Green for the lady. One battery, yeah?" I blink in surprise and hand over the half depleted battery in my pocket, it should have cost more. It is a rapid exchange, but the man is still standing there, watching me with stern eyes. Purple Lips is letting me breath, stepping away from me enough that I can move my arms freely and I resist the urge to do something stupid, like hit a man with bodyguards who could kill me.
"Come, sweet thing, follow me. I'll keep you safe. Little one like you wants safe, yeah? Me? Safest man you'll ever know. Only man, yeah? Yeah, I be your only man. Come, come." The two women are staring at me, the store minder is as well and I feel the disgust well up into my throat. Pink light is beginning to filter under the caravan covers and I take it as a distraction, turning and running down through the thin crowd as quickly as I can. There is no one behind me, or around me that I can see as I get home, though the jangle of bracelets haunts my ears. I watch from the cracks in my windows for the glowing blue and red of that woman's hair, but all I can see is the black of the sun covers.
Five days later and I have to get supplies; rationing only works so long as the food lasts, and mine disappeared a day ago. Skulking through the crowds that gather in pockets I can see the streaming ribbons that mark women as gang members. A Naturist is walking alongside a young man whose hair she is fascinated by, her fingers rolling the fad dreads back and forth while she grins at his chatter. They disappear in a cloud of hookah smoke from a group of men nearby; I don't know this group, and what I can see of the instrument between their feet is carved in a beautiful relief of a king and his subjects. Passing their apple scented bodies I am shoved against a wall, an amazon woman glaring at me.
"You! Child. Who are you?" I stare at her, automatically noting the red and blue that is entwined in her plaits. She moves closer, sneering down her pug nose at me. "I asked you a question."
"I am Liyu." The woman smiles with shark teeth and I press against the wall hard. "I mean no harm."
"Not yet you don't. Come with me." I recall the incident last week, the way I was claimed and the way no one took note.
My jaw clicks as I stretch it out, playing for time. The woman is not naturally tall, I notice now that she wears thick soled heels that raise her about ten centimetres. I do not know how she walks in them. I watch as her feet shift, the red straps on her heels hiding beneath the black of her pants. They are tight fitting and I can see the raised outline of several knives from ankle to thigh. She is even armed on her stomach, the orange fabric stretched over her shoulders and the harness that rests there. "Come now, kid. I don't have time for this."
"Why?"
"Why what? Move it." She rips my shirt as she yanks me from the wall, snarling.
"If you're going to kill me, do it here." The crowd is flowing around our small drama, and the hookah men never look in our direction. She laughs, incredulous and somehow pleased she lets my shirt go and crosses her arms.
"You think you're tough? You're Suburban, kid. You wouldn't know tough if it kissed you." I stumble back as she leers into my face. "Hah. See? What's the use of some little scroungy rat what can't even look after herself? You want to die here as this crap little piece of nothing?" The words bite into my exposed skin, the layers of doubt simmer to the surface again. "Come with me and you'll survive, rat. You may even do better'n that."
The bile is in my throat and suddenly on my tongue and I am throwing up into the rut where the caravan wheels lie. "Look at you, pathetic rat." She still stands there watching me, as though I were tying my shoe and not burning my lungs inside out. "What are you gonna do if them pansy lipped curs get you? Gonna bat your ugly eyes and beg? They'll eat you for dinner, good as." She hauls me up by my nape and shakes the panic out of me. On my feet I am dizzy and blurred, ignoring the spiral of people that dance through the crowd, all I can see are the ribbons that lock each woman into the hellish gang they love. "What will you do, rat, when some blue lipped bastard tries to steal you to sell, hrm?" I shake my head at her and stumble away, hands out to facilitate my escape. I am turned about again and again until finally I am in the park that I cross to reach my home. It is barren and the solitude settles my mind and my stomach, the only reminder of the markets is a faint jingle of bells that fades rapidly. It feels like moments before I am home, watching the darkness turn in and out of shapes. Most are familiar shapes of faces and animals, but every so often I feel the horrid tearing in my stomach and the shadows thicken to cover my eyes.
I fear many things, and I have learnt to live with my fear, but I can never overcome my fear of blindness. I cannot fathom the continual purgatory that the blind must be in, I believe it will be worse than death, that it will breaks what little spirit I have into shiny, blunt pieces. I used to imagine, in the years just after the Great War began, that my spirit would shine out of me like a beacon for those too weary to find their own way. I designed myself as a heroine to rival those in the books I used to read, I would never get it wrong, never say die and I would reach the happily ever after without thought. The shadows thickened again and my mind crawls into the desperate corner where my dreams are locked. As my tightly shut eyes convince the darkness to leave me alone, my mind strokes that little box where my imagines are kept and I remember why I don't imagine anymore. The nightmares of starry eyed monsters eating the heart out of my body kept me awake weeks at a time, the dreams of an untouched paradise broke my heart. Locking my thoughts away, I curl up on the couch and screw my eyelids closed as tight as I can, letting my exhaustion black everything out.
The markets used to be safe, as safe as anywhere else, at least. Now this man is there all the time, at every stall I walk up to I can feel his eyes watching me. Twice he has approached me, arms wide open and smile generous. The first time I ignored him as best I could, pretending as though I had no voice and no ears to hear his chatter. The second time I took refuge in the crowds that always harass the news caravan. Otherwise, I talk to the minder from the medicine stall when I can and Purple Lips never approaches me there. The man's name is Peito and he was thirty when the meteors hit for the first time. He had a family; two young boys who were learning how to ride, there are no tears in his eyes when he mentions their names, or the saints who inspired them. It was the shower over the west of the city that took them out. Perhaps the second or third shower, before anyone was at all prepared. In America they had begun preparations, buildings underground where the heat didn't reach. But here it was slower, no one could get together fast enough after each tragedy.
"Country's too wide, not enough people in the right spots. You shoulda heard the stories we got, from the states out west - hit them the worst. Fires upon fires, I'd be surprised anythin' left, what with the heat they had that summer already." He was at work when the shower took his children and wife, in one of the tall buildings that no one goes to now. "The city had all these little alleys and coves, right? But no one remembered the water. Hot water's a killer, kid, and no one knew until it started to boil over. Hundreds of bodies cooked and rotting on the beaches - those kids what never read the signs, strayed out of the flags. 'pose there's not much loss there no more."
I was too young, just a little kid when the first meteors hit. I can remember my mum telling me that the stars watched me at night, and that they'd protect me. Nothing scares anyone more than seeing a falling star these days. I suppose when you're holed up in what used to be Town Hall station, there aren't any stars to see you, but you're scared all the same. I'm scared, living in the husk of my parent's home, wondering when the thick black covers will crack and fall away.
"It's been happening up north, word comes down from the crazies what do the travelling - gotta have a man what travels, to have a business. Sheets cracking like smashed ice, letting the full blown sun burn up everyone inside." I know I have made some noise, probably a whimper, imaging my body crisped and black. His hands cupped mine around the mug of tea we shared. "Look, kid. You'll be right, no worries. The sky's up there." He pointed upward and smiled at me with perfect teeth the medicine merchant ought to have some toothpaste, no doubt it sells some wares; he looks respectable. "It's not coming down again for some time. You come here 'ever you need, clear? Now scoot, the sun'll be spitting at us soon and I've got to pack up." There is no space to hug him behind his colourful counter, so I squeeze his hand. I don't remember having many friends before the sky fell down, but I'm sure he'd beat them all.
Every caravan is packing up, their black canvas hoods folded over their window openings. The crowd has thinned massively, only a few of the most daring still flirting with the sun. I glance around, keeping the notion of a jog home in the top of my mind. To the right I notice one of Purple Lips' women talking to the amazon Patriot from a month ago. The Patriot was persistent, talking to me every time she saw me walking or waiting at a stall. I turn heel and start left, toward home, when I notice Purple Lips immediately in front of me, eyes roving over my body. I veer more right to go around him, but he shifts easily to block my path. Keeping my bag close to my side I glare at his heavyset form and snarl quietly. I want to speed through the street, taking the first left would get me straight through the park.
"Precious little one, why don't we go for a walk?" I say nothing but feint to the right again. Taking advantage as he shifts that way, I dodge left and run around him as quickly as I can, dashing into the left hand street. I think I can hear the Patriot's roaring laughter as I slow to a walk, Purple Lips clearly not having followed.
To the right of the park is a long fence, it covers as far as I can see, on the other side of this chain-link monster is a hole so large it ate four and a half buildings, a road and an entire duck pond. It also killed forty three people and twelve cats. Large red and yellow signs scream DANGER! DO NOT CROSS every few metres, in the morning light they look as though they are sunspots burning through the metal. There are footsteps behind me, heavy and flat on the cracked dirt. I try not to speed up and keeping my eyes on the fence, I wrap the bag strap around my wrist. The person behind me is tall, the footsteps are gaining without picking up speed. I want to run, desperately I want to take off until I'm home safe, but that would start something I'm not sure I can finish. Vaguely, I hope it is the Patriot following me, so she can credit my trick with the large man. The beating of my heart turns up a notch and I feel that it is not the Patriot whose feet have started to speed up that little bit. In less than a minute I'll reach the back streets of Wallawere and once there I can lose myself in the alleys. I hear a jingle of bells crashing together behind me and it hits me - Purple Lips' women have bells circling their ankles. I run.
I am in the third alley before my house and I have begun to think logically; they know where I live. My bag thumps against my thigh as I sprint under the only train bridge that still runs and I briefly consider leaping onto the tracks. But it is a fool's task, and today is not when I want to die. Mon dieu! I have nowhere to go. I fear they are reading my thoughts and I try to recall my childhood French, my mother was never the most diligent tutor. Je... suis... No, everyone knows the basics. I am not safe. Two more turns and I will be in my backyard, the bells have increased in number, there is no telling how many chase me now.
Skidding around the second turn I see the glint of blue in the sky and my mind shrieks at me; we'll all die if this doesn't end soon. Already the heat is boiling my sweat as it runs down my nose. I feel dry and moist at the same time, my knees click with the exertion. Stick to your books, my father always said, and now I know how much he hated me. Damn the old bastard and his nomad crap, I push the extra sweat from my pores and leap over the boxes that obscure my back gate. I am inside. The bells have not stopped and I stumble to unlock my back door, shoving the key into the lock as hard as it will let me. It jams and I scream at it, kicking the door as the bells get louder, more urgent. The key breaks in the lock and I throw it to the ground, kicking the door as hard as I can; the pain reverberates from ankle to knee to hip but the door cracks and I know it will open.
I glance behind as the door swings inward and see five barely dressed women clamouring over my boxes and choke on the relief in my throat. His thick fingers are squeezing my mouth shut and his vile breath is all over my cheek as his hips press into my back.
"Welcome home, sweet thing."
